Marching Bands Need A Tuneup

RAY RECCHI

October 1, 1985|By Ray Recchi, Columnist

John Rambo has nothing on me when it comes to maintaining silence while withstanding pain. Caught behind enemy lines, I am sure I would scoff at the most intense pain, laugh at the most vicious forms of torture.

Unless, of course, they threaten me with a marching band, in which case I will spill my guts on any subject they name.

With some people, it`s fingernails on a blackboard. With others, it`s the voice of Tina Turner. With me it`s marching bands (although the other two are close runners-up).

The thing I like least about marching bands, I guess, is that most of them obviously spend a lot more time working on the marching part than on the band part.

This is, of course, a generalization. There are some very good musicians in marching bands. They are the half-dozen who are playing in the right key at the right tempo. Unfortunately, they usually are marching in the wrong direction.

Next to instant replay, the best thing about watching football on television as opposed to attending a game, is that we get to watch highlights of other games instead of a halftime show featuring a marching band.

Don`t get me wrong, though. I love music. That`s one of the several reasons I don`t like marching bands. Anyone with a healthy respect for music would not ask musicians to play their instruments while organizing themselves into a relief map of the great state of Montana.

As a matter of fact, I even like band music. On the way to work this morning, I heard a selection by the U.S. Coast Guard Band. It was great stuff, the kind of music that makes you want to go out and do something.

But I`ll bet my favorite recliner that those people were sitting down while they were playing.

Besides, most marching bands don`t play band music anymore. Some of them, I am sure, think John Philip Sousa is one of the characters in Miami Vice. That`s because bandmasters want to be ``contemporary`` and play music that will ``keep the kids interested.`` So instead of The Washington Post March, they play the latest hit by Bruce Springsteen or Madonna set to a possibly recognizable tempo.

Anyone who attended a high school football game while Flashdance was popular knows what I mean when I say nothing sounds less hip than a pop or rock song played in march time.

You can imagine then, how I felt when my son came home from his fourth day of middle school two years ago and announced he had been selected to be in the school band. His instrument was to be the trombone, which I could (conveniently) rent from a local dealer for only a few dollars a month.

My life as a potential ``band parent`` flashed before my eyes. I shuddered.

``If you want to play the trombone, why am I frittering away the family fortune on piano lessons?`` I asked in my calmest Clint Eastwood voice.

``I don`t want to play the trombone,`` he said. ``I wanted to take Spanish, but there were no openings so they put me in the band. Besides, I was one of the only ones who could get a sound out of the trombone.``

When I announced my intention to make a similar sound in the face of whoever was in charge of such things, my wife took over. She paid a diplomatic visit to the school. Magically, an opening was found in the Spanish class.

That still leaves 75 trombones to lead the big parade. But at least I`m not paying for any of them.